Page 28

Twenty-Eight

Wednesday 2pm

The bus continued south, past midtown and the lights and bustle of shops, until Charlie had no idea where he was. What he wanted to do was to go to the hospital and force his way into Tom’s room. And he would do it, just not until later. But first he needed to look at that flat again. Something was wrong about it, and he didn’t just mean the fake serial-killer-wall-of-obsession. He got off the bus into the rain, walked until he found the northbound bus stop and climbed aboard the first bus that came. The street numbers began to increase as the bus wound its way north. At 115th he got off. There were several of the blank-looking apartment buildings nearby, so he knew he was in the right area. He just had to find the one with the Deganways' apartment. It took him half an hour, and then he was on the wrong side of the chain link fence with no way of getting in.

Eventually someone came out, and Charlie was through the gate. The rain was his friend. No one wanted to hang around to ask him his business, though the small group of teenagers did give him an odd look. Charlie suspected that most of the white people in this area were cops, and let’s face it, he was probably giving off all the cop vibes. He wasn’t quite in Eddie’s spot-the-cop league, but no one was ever surprised when he said what he did for a living.

The next obstacle was the main door to the apartment building, only for a miracle it was open. Propped open by a fire extinguisher. Charlie blessed whoever it was who had lost their keys, or who had nipped out with the rubbish or whatever. He was in. The internal corridor was dark. Sounds of TVs and music seeped from the individual front doors, along with the smell of weed and cigarette smoke. The Deganways' apartment was past the bank of lifts and Charlie met no one as he made his way there. He could hear one of the lifts approaching as he lifted his hand to knock on the door. There was no obvious reason for Charlie to hide from whoever was in the lift, but some instinct made him duck into the deepest shadow. Probably a response to having been shot at in the street. He heard the lift doors opening and footsteps going to the main doorway. A man’s voice cursed the rain, and Charlie was alone again, staring at the door—which wasn’t properly closed. He must have noticed subconsciously. Of course, there could be an innocent explanation, but the way the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck told Charlie that there wasn’t.

Still, he knocked. No answer.

“Miss Deganway,” he called. No answer. “It’s Charlie Rees, I was here earlier,” he called, and then he pushed the door open.

* * *

The air in the room was still. Charlie didn’t move. He let himself take in the scene. Miss Deganway wasn’t there, and there was no sign of anyone else. In fact, there was no sign that anyone had ever been there at all. The plastic-covered sofa showed no indentations. No dust marred any of the flat surfaces. There were no fingermarks on the black glass of the TV. The tiny kitchen was clear of glasses or coffee cups, and what he should have noticed on his first visit — there was no hum from the huge refrigerator. He had thought Hannibal’s room was a stage set and he’d been right. The whole place was a stage set and Miss Deganway had been an actor.

* * *

Charlie heard sirens from outside. It wasn’t an unusual sound, but he had a powerful urge to run. If the police were coming here, Charlie wanted to be somewhere else.

The sirens got closer.

Charlie snatched up Tom’s messenger bag. The teenagers had seen him come off the street, but no one had seen him enter the flat. Yes, he was a police officer, albeit a Welsh one, but this felt all kinds of wrong. This whole day felt wrong, like someone was pulling the strings off-stage, and only they knew what happened in the rest of the puppet show.

Reason told him that he could prove his innocence of Kaylan’s murder. But it would all take time, and Charlie had a sense that time was running out, that events were accelerating. He needed to think and to try to make sense of what he’d found out over the last few days. Above all, he needed to know what was going on at the hospital and to know that Tom was safe.

It was too late. The sirens stopped. He could hear people shouting and see the reflections of blue lights on the walls of the dark corridor. Any moment the police would be in the building.

A green light showed one of the lifts was on the ground floor. Charlie pressed the button and when the doors opened, he got in and hit the button for the top floor. The doors closed as the first uniformed officers came through the main entrance, guns drawn.

Charlie’s legs went from under him and he sank onto the floor of the lift, head spinning. What the fuck was he supposed to do now?

* * *

Charlie sat on the fire exit stairs at the top of the apartment building. The concrete was chilly, but his jacket was warm, if damp, and the stairs themselves were clean. When he got out of the lift, he could hear voices from within the flats, the voices of people getting on with ordinary lives. The voice he most wanted to hear was Tom’s but at that moment he was lonely enough to talk to his mother. Not that he would. It was late in the UK, and five minutes listening to his mother describe Charlie’s faults would be enough to drive him to complete despair. Instead, he dialed a familiar number.

“Sir, it’s Charlie.”

God only knew what time it was in the UK, but Kent must be at home and had probably been asleep.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes, but … not really.” Where was he supposed to start? Mal Kent had warned him off once already, told him not to interfere. “Sorry, sir. It’s too late to ring. It’s not important.” He ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket, and wondered how long he would have to sit where he was before trying to get out of the building.

His phone rang.

“Charlie. You’re not ringing me because you like the sound of my voice. Is Tom okay?” Kent sounded worried, and Charlie wanted to cry.

“I don’t know. They won’t let me see him. They won’t tell me anything. His parents, I mean.”

“But he’s …?”

“Alive. Yes. But he’s in a coma.”

“Charlie, don’t give up. That’s an order. Now tell me why you rang.” Charlie heard music in the background, imagined Mal at home with his fiancé, cuddled up on the sofa, as he would have been with Tom. He felt the tears behind his eyes and blinked hard. A door closed on the other side of the world, and the music stopped. A chair scraped against a hard floor. “Charlie. What do you need? Bail money? A character reference? A lawyer? Who do I need to call?”

Charlie took a deep breath and tried to get his thoughts in order.

“I need to find out who someone is. His name is Brody Murphy, and he says he’s with the NYPD, only he isn’t. I’ve asked Unwin already; all he can find is that he’s really FBI. I don’t know if he’s trying to help me or get me killed.” Charlie recounted the day’s events: the visit to Hannibal Deganway’s apartment, the apparently ‘perfect’ serial killer set-up, the drive-by shooting. “I know you told me not to get involved, but I am involved. The FBI took my clothes. Murphy says they found a gun in my flat. They seem to think I killed Kaylan. Or maybe they just want me to think that. I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t sound like you know much. It does sound like someone wants you out of the way. I’ll see what I can find out, though no promises. Go and see Tom.”

If they’ll let me, and if I can get out of this building without being arrested.